The Financing of Local Government in China: stimulus loan wanes and shadow banking waxes

1. The Financing of Local Government in China:stimulus loan wanes and shadow banking waxes Zhiguo He (何治国) University of Chicago, Booth School of Business;and NBER joint with ZhuoChen (Tsinghua PBCSF) and Chun Liu (Tsinghua SEM)

2. Motivation Trust/Entrusted loans : 信托和委托贷款; WMP: 理财产品 Data source: PBOC and China Banking Wealth Management Registration System

3. New bank loan & GDP Data source: PBOC and National Bureau of Statistics

4. US-China bond markets Bond/GDP~85% Bond/GDP~200%

5. Summary China’s local government debt shifts from bank loans in 2009 to a significant fraction of non-bank debt starting 2012 This paper: The real force behind the upsurge of shadow banking A universal economic phenomenon/mechanism Why do shadow banking activities in China start rampant growth around 2012-13? Hangover effect of 2009 stimulus Time series and cross-section evidence on local government financingand municipal corporate bonds (城投债) An angle that helps understand the marketization process of Chinese financial system starting 2012

6. Four-Trillion Stimulus Planand its financing Four-trillion Stimulusplan (四万亿刺激计划) Following 2007/08 global crisis, Premier Wen announced the 4T RMB stimulus plan on Nov2008 Domestic investment (mainly infrastructure) to boost GDP growth How was it implemented and financed? Mostly through local governments (Bai, Hsieh and Song, 2016, Brookings) 1 trillion from Beijing; the rest through LGFV (Local Government Financing Vehicles, 政府融资平台) Mostly in the form of bank loans (90% commercial bank loans and 10% policy bank loans)

7. Four-Trillion Stimulus Planand its financing Local Government Transfer of 1 Trillion RMB Beijing, central govt 1994 Budget law Equity holder, by injecting land Commercial Banking system Local Government Financing Vehicle (Local State-Owned Enterprises) Loans of 2.7 Trillion RMB Households deposits Loans of 0.3 Trillion RMB Policy Banks

8. Shifting of local government financing (1) in 2010 China reverted back to its normal credit policy… 2009 Stimulus loan hangover effect Need to rollover/refinance their three- to five-year bank loans (which are maturing around 2012 to 2014) Long-term infrastructure projects need continuing investment LGFVs turn to non-bank sources What are they?

9. Shifting of local government financing (2) four major debt liabilities Bank Loans Municipal Bonds (地方政府债: pre-2015, issued directly by MoFfor qualified local government; post-2015, issued by local government at the province level) Municipal Corporate Bonds (城投债, our focus) Corporate bonds issued by LGFVs Trust and Entrusted Loans (信托贷款和委托贷款) other three are non-bank debt; often with implicit bail-out expectation National Audit office reports on local government debt, on Dec 2010 and June 2013 Worked hard filling out the rest Bank loan wanes, non-bank debt waxes

10. Composition change of bank and non-bank debt financing

11. Municipal corporate Bond（MCB, 城投债） Data source: PBOC and Wind

12. Cross-sectional analyses: Evidence from MCB Core idea Areas/provinces with more bank-loan-fueled stimulus in 2009 should have more shadow banking in 2012-2015 Matters little whether driven by LGFVs (demand) or banks (supply) in 2009 Though, we use “late-term officials” as IV (demand shifter) to address other endogeneity concerns We focus on Municipal corporate Bonds It is more than data availability issue; source of fund versus use of fund For MCB, we know where the funds go to

13. Preliminary Evidence Economic variables Abnormal2009 Bank loan over GDP at the province level (BL/GDP at 2009) – (Average BL/GDP 2004~08) Abnormal 201t MCB over GDPfor each province over 2012-2015 (MCB/GDPat 201t) – (Average MCB/GDP2004~08) We also look at regional and city level

14. Provincial evidence for each year, 2012-2015

15. Main empirical tests empirical specification Province FE () and year FE (); from 2004 to 2015 Time-varying impacts of 2009 abnormal BL on future MCB issuances Controls with flexible time coefficients: economic activity at 2007Q4-2008Q3 Fiscal deficit over GDP, fixed asset investment over GDP; GDP growth, GDP per capita Instrument variable: whether a provincial governor is “late term” (>2 years in the position) as of 2009 Stronger promotion incentive for “late-term” governor to react to the stimulus More familiar with the local environment, easier to implement the stimulus Other evidences The effect of longer-term CDB loans, city level results Control variables at the same year for omitted variables Real effects

16. OLS result • Throughout, standard errors clustered at province-year level

17. iv result

18. MCB issuance purposes • 81% of MCB prospectus reveal its purpose…. but self-reporting

19. Estimation results

20. Economic magnitude What is the loan maturity implied by estimated coefficients? In aggregate, each dollar of stimulus loan needs 1.57/4.7 = 33 cents of repayment MCB issuance RMB 4.7 trillion abnormal bank loans extended in 2009 In total, RMB 1.57 trillion worth of MCB was issued to repay bank loans (the rest is repaid by trust) Cross-sectional regression, how many years do we need to payback 33 cents? Just accumulating the estimated coefficients…. The IV estimate implied stimulus loan maturity is 3.9 years Consistent with other sources (3-5 years in Kroeber, 2016; 4.1 years in Ru, 2018)

21. EVIDENCE FROM CDB LOAN Loans from China development Bank have longer maturity CDB: policy bank, tends to give longer maturity loans (7.2 years in Ru, 2018) rollover mechanism is concentrated in in low-CDB-loan provinces Dummy : whether the 2009 CDB loan fraction of a province i is below the median (max 74%, median 16%) Prediction which captures the effect on high CDB-loan province should be insignificant The coefficients in front of the interaction term have similar magnitude as the baseline without CDB interactions

22. EVIDENCE FROM CDB LOAN

23. EVIDENCE at city level

24. REAL effects: investment

25. Link to Shadow banking

26. Link to Shadow banking: entrusted LOAN growth • Unfortunately, province-level EL data are only available after 2013 • In 2015, tightening regulation on Trust/Entrusted business in China

27. Link to Shadow banking: Wealth Management Product • Based on annual official reports on WMP; likely underestimate as unclear whether including certain financial innovation funded through WMP

28. US Experience in National banking era China’s shadow banking in today has striking similarity with the US history National banking era (1863-1912) in US Started with the passage of national banking act (1864) which ended the “free banking era” Tightly regulated nationally chartered banks, segmented Frequent banking panics, especially the 1907 panic triggered by a run on Trust companies, led to Fed as the Central Bank in US Economic background Industrial revolution in the Northeast to the settlement of the West; railroad construction in US is like infrastructure in China today A new industry craving for financing, but national banks cannot Regulatory arbitrage (like in China) States in the west started imposing less restrictive regulations, so-called state banks Trust companies, which are state-chartered financial institutions

29. Trust companies in US history Trust companies according to Carosso (1970, p. 99) Incorporated under liberal state laws, trust companies quickly extended their activities far beyond those usually associated with the services of a fiduciary institution. Beginning in the 1890s, trust companies took on most of the functions of both commercial and private banks. They accepted deposits; made loans; participated extensively in reorganizing railroads and consolidating industrial corporations; acted as trustees, underwriters, and distributors of new securities; and served as depositories of stocks, bonds, and titles ..... Very often they also owned and managed real estate. This is essentially what China’s Trust companies do

30. What do we learn? Neal (1971): Trust companies in US history Invested in new industrial securities on the asset side, and issued deposit to expand the money supply Helped establish a financial market to feed real economy Form “money trust” with other dominating commercial banks at that time IN China, shadow banking Supports infrastructure, real estate, and private firms while generating a savings vehicle (WMP) for Chinese households Accelerates the growth of Chinese corporate bond market at an astonishing speed (Amsted and He, 2018) Relies on the retail network of existing banking branch system; “the shadow of banks”

31. DEVELOPMENT OF CORPORATE BOND MARKETS in China

32. conclusion A mechanism that puts together recent various aspects of China’s financial market Local government debt; shadow banking; interest rate liberalization Shadow banking: unintended consequence of Four-trillion Stimulusplan Good? bad? Popular view: hidden risk and leverage, so bad But it fosters the modernization of China’s financial markets “Let market be decisive;” interest rate liberalization and deposit insurance Rocket-speed of the growth of interbank market in China; less reliance on commercial banks; richer set of investment products Chen, Chen, He, Liu, and Xie (2019) on pledgeability effect Households get the return they ought to get (not just house price appreciation)

33. HALF OF 2009 ABNORMAL BANK LOANS GO TO LGFV Data source: Authors’ estimate and Gao et al. (2018)

34. Panel regressions with simultaneous controls

35. CDB is a policy bank and thus usually its loan has longer maturity • Less rollover pressure for provinces with more CDB LGFV loan received in 2009 EVIDENCE FROM CDB LOAN

36. REAL effects OF STIMULUS LOANS FAI: fixed asset investment